Lovintimes Day

I’m not much for flowers or chocolate…well, in certain applications, but, you know, not so much bouquets and heart-shaped boxes. More rose water and cacao nibs.

They gots stuffs in thems!

Recently my mom sent me a couple boxes of some vegetarian gelatin substitute. I’ve been in a very use-up-all-the-little-odds-and-ends mood, so in the spirit of Valentine’s Day I created some jiggly, romantic little hearts.

Pomegranate yay!

I still had a couple of 16 oz. bottles of Pom Wonderful juice sitting in the fridge, and considering each box of fake gelatin called for 16 oz. of liquid, how could I NOT make pomegranate Jell-O?

Big or little, both were delicious.

I also had a couple of pomegranates sadly getting older in the fridge so I added them for crunchy awesomeness reasons. And for a little romantic mysteriousness, I included a splash of rose water.

Kinda sorta heart-shaped?

The fakey gelatin stuff (which is from Natural Desserts and is vegan, gluten-free and Kosher…here are the ingredients: Vegetable Gum, Adipic Acid, Tapioca Dextrin, Calcium Phosphate, Potassium Citrate) works great and it’s not brittle like agar agar or gummy like pectin. The only real difference is that it had to be added in powdered form while the juice was boiling hot, whisked in and poured into molds immediately. It sets up CRAZY fast and it was actually kind of hard to get the pomegranate arils into some of the small hearts – I had to kind of throw them in to get them to not just sit on the surface.

The recipe below is how you’d make this with real gelatin.

Squooshy & juicy.

Jiggly Pomegranate Hearts

1/4 oz. Knox gelatin

16 oz. (2 cups) Pom Wonderful 100% pomegranate juice, chilled

1/8 tsp rose water

1/4 cup fresh pomegranate arils

Bloom the gelatin in 4 oz. (1/2 cup) of juice. In the meantime, bring the rest of the juice to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in the rose water, then whisk in the gelatin mixture until completely dissolved. Pour into heart-shaped molds and/or ramekins and add arils. Chill until set, about 3 hours.

Because there is no added sugar in this recipe, it’s actually quite healthy, and the rose water adds a slight floral sweetness that counteracts the tart pomegranate juice. The arils are beautifully suspended like jewels and the whole thing really is pretty romantic.